South Korean couples who married last year hit a record low, figures showed on Thursday, compounding looming demographic woes in a country with the world’s lowest birth rate.
According to the data released by Statistics Korea on Thursday, Some 192,000 couples got married last year down by more than 40 percent from a decade earlier in 2012, when 327,000 couples had married. This is the lowest number of marriages in a year since records began in 1970.
The average age for men getting married for the first time was 33.7 years old, a record high, the data showed, while the age for brides also hit a record high of 31.3 years old for marriage. They represent an addition of 1.6 years for men and 1.9 for women for first-time marriage from a decade earlier.
About 80 percent of couples who got married last year were doing so for the first time. The new data comes as South Korea is grappling with a regular drop in its birth rate, with the lowest-ever number of babies (249,000) born last year, smashing a previous record low in 2021.
South Korea had long ago handed the so-called alternate rate after which the population begins to shrink with a record-low 0.78 births per woman last year.
The government has paid around 280 trillion won ($213 billion) since 2006 to increase birth rates but the population is projected to drop from about 52 million to 39 million by 2067 when the median population age will be 62.
Specialists say there are numerous causalities for the twin wonder of low marriage and birth rates, from high child-rearing expenses and property prices to a notoriously competitive society that makes well-paid jobs difficult to secure.
The double responsibility for laboring mothers of taking out the brunt of household chores and childcare while also keeping their jobs is another key factor, experts say.
